Australia (2008) Movie Poster Analysis

There are several ways to understand the Australia movie poster in terms of Australianness. Australia is a multi-cultural nation with the diverse culture and natural scenery (Craig, 2004). However, the story of Australia also is accompanied by cruel warfare and the competition. The aboriginal people were treated by British colonists unfair and contemptible during the long period of Australian history. This essay will initially analyze the Australia movie poster and illustrate the inequalities and exploitable implication in gender, class, historic event within the imagined community that the poster igneous. However, the limitation of this essay will also exist due to the length of the essay.

Gender is one important factor of this movie. Woman always are seen as the vulnerable group in modern society and also in Australia. The poster ultimately represents men as trying to protect the high class English lady. Although there is an atmosphere of desolation and sadness in the poster, the expression of media is well understood by audiences, women may found strong determination and aspiration to keep striving in the war. Bowles (2010, P51) state that because the image of the movie “could-and should-do a better job of representing social real, precisely because they have the capacity to affect the way people think and behave.”

Even though the imaginary culture of Australian egalitarianism regards different classes as equals, the social political and economic inequality of classes still occurs nowadays. Obviously, viewers could notice the status is different between the British noble lady and the average workman seen in the Australian movie poster. The British colonist and new migrants brought with the new opinions about how society should be controlled, since then the working class was treated unfairly (Elder, 2007, p54). However, the globalization of the culture and economy has changed labor conditions. Ultimately, Elder (Elder, 2007, p40) report that “Australian egalitarianism could be used to challenge inequality within the nation”.

The Australia movie poster described the story during World War II, meanwhile, the aboriginal people are treated very cruelly and they cannot hold their own rights. On the one hand, the poster represents the same meaning that the indigenous people are humble in Australian society, the aboriginal person stand under the white people and seems like so small in the whole poster. It is also approved that the “stolen generation” is not an essential part of Australia probably and audiences maybe not interested in this section of all the film (McKee, 2003). On the other hand, eventually, the aboriginal people also accept the federal governments’ apology recent years, the unification of the nation become more peaceful than before.

Furthermore, the poster demonstrates a important aspect of Australianness: nationalism. The meaning of nationalism belongs to imagined communities; Anderson (2006, p7) came up with this distinguished theory: “it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship”. The nationalism is a kind of cultural phenomenon. The main point of Australia poster illustrate the development of nation states help to unify people until now, the Australian citizens hang together and no matter what the color they are or what the faith they have, they fought to the finish.

To sum up, the Australia movie poster represents a romantic love story between the white upper class British lady and the working class drover during the time of war and various visual technique are used to tranced inequalities in gender, status, history and culture of nationalism.

Olivia Gao (43394043)